


The Circle Rules Your Life

by Spaghettibopp



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Rain, Supernatural Elements, natsuri is just implied this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaghettibopp/pseuds/Spaghettibopp
Summary: Natsuki watches the rain blur and distort her small world until nothing but an abstract mosaic remains. The car keeps moving, the seatbelt keeps tightening, and, of course, the rain keeps pouring.
Relationships: Natsuki/Yuri (Doki Doki Literature Club!)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	The Circle Rules Your Life

It’s raining outside. The downpour turns the windows of the car into mosaics, with each piece of art depicting the street outside in almost holy brokenness. The scene reminds Natsuki of a distant memory; going to church with her father when she was very young, just after her mother died. Mosaic windows of biblical scenes sparkled in the sunlight, inspiring a sort of awe in her as a child.

The sky is a dark gray here, the only shining light coming from fractured headlights that Yuri passes by as she drives. Natsuki watches a bright green blur turn to yellow and then red, listens to the pounding on their roof, and doesn’t once question if they should be driving in this storm.

The blur turns back to green almost immediately, and they’re on the move again. Unremarkable scenery rolls by, too distorted to make out and too bland to have a distinct shape in the first place. 

She spares Yuri a glance. Her beautiful, pristine face shows no emotion, existing simply as a blank slate as she stares ahead. Natsuki's eyes flicker to her chest to make sure she’s still breathing, then waits to see if she will ever blink.

Neither of them say a word.

She doesn’t remember where they’re going.

Every street looks the same, every sign obscured by the storm. There is no lightning to break up the dullness, no spark of light to illuminate the dreary day and give definition to the shapes outside her window.

She presses her cheek to the glass and feels the vibrations of the car travel through her skin. The air conditioning is on and it’s just a bit too cold, but she knows Yuri likes it that way, so she won’t object. Her body sways as the car makes a turn. How many turns have they made? How long have they been in the car?

Everything is a blur of hazy memories, and it is then that Natsuki realizes that the windshield wipers aren’t on, have never _been_ on. The rain picks up outside, further warping her vision.

She turns to Yuri, a pinprick of panic blossoming in her heart. She tries to speak, but she can’t find the words to describe her fear, can’t explain why Yuri should be afraid too. She opens and closes her mouth several times and only manages to make a tiny, inhuman squeak somewhere in the back of her throat.

Purple eyes finally glance her way, and all at once Natsuki is hit with an overwhelming sense of dread.

“Don’t worry,” says a voice that almost sounds like Yuri, “we’re almost there.”

Yuri smiles in the way a zombie might when its lips have been torn off and all that’s left in its head are hazy memories of a past life.

Natsuki feels the straps on her seatbelt tighten, and it doesn’t come undone when she frantically clicks the button.

“Don’t worry,” a voice that is not Yuri says, “we’re almost there.”

She struggles against the belt, yanking at it in hopes of loosening its grip on her. It further presses into her. She pushes herself as far into the seat as she can get, and still it tightens. The rain picks up outside.

She reaches for the handle of the door, but her arms are too short to grasp it. The seatbelt continues to squeeze her, leaving bruises on her chest and hips.

She kicks up her foot and wedges a sneaker in the gap between the door and the handle.

“Don’t worry-”

She tries to push the handle open, but the door is locked. She reaches to lift up the lock, ignores the pain of polyester cutting into her skin as she wiggles and writhes to get to it.

“We’re almost-”

_Click!_

“-there.”

She pushes open the door with one spindly leg, and the seatbelt _snaps._

She’s expelled from the car by some unknown force, sending her skidding across wet asphalt. She scrapes her knees, arms, hands, legs, face, as she rolls into the abyss. 

Peace comes not from a stop in her movements, but rather from a heavy darkness that drapes over her like a blanket. The blur of painted white lines and grimy asphalt turn into a constant slate of black.

For a moment, she drifts aimlessly, a consciousness without a body in an empty world.

Then, it all comes rushing to her in the form of a beige driveway falling up to her face.

It hits her with an ear-splitting _crack,_ and she groans in protest of her newfound Hell.

“Wow Natsuki! You must have been really excited to see me!”

She forces her head to move and glares up at the figure of Monika standing over her.

“O-oh no, is she okay?” Yuri’s voice - _Yuri’s real voice_ \- comes from somewhere behind Monika, and soon the girl herself is bent over to look at her. Concern is etched into every corner of Yuri’s face, and Natsuki has never been so relieved to see her so worried.

Tears blur her vision for a moment, long enough to spark panic in her soul. She struggles to get up. Yuri is there to help her, allowing Natsuki to use her as a prop as she stands. Monika just watches, a polite smile permanently carved into her face. There is something flickering behind those sharp green eyes, but it’s just out of Natsuki’s reach, and she’s too tired to try and grasp it anyway.

“What happened?” Yuri touches her shoulder in a way that’s almost protective, and Natsuki can’t fight the blush she gets from it.

“I uh….” She wracks her brain for an answer, but the distorted memories slip from her grip like they were nothing but a dream in the first place. Something sticks out, though. She remembers something about- something about….

“Rain?”

Yuri gives her an odd look. “Natsuki, it hasn’t rained in weeks.”

Natsuki turns her head to the bright blue above them. There’s not a cloud in sight; it’s all clear skies and sparkling sunlight.

“Huh.”

A clap brings her attention back to the infamous literature club president. “Okay everyone! Now that we’re all here, let’s head inside. We’ve got a lot to do to prepare for the festival, after all.”

Monika skips merrily up the driveway and into her house, leaving Natsuki and Yuri to stumble after her. As they clumsily make their way through the door, Natsuki can’t help but feel as though she has just forgotten something very important. She opens her mouth to say something about it, but stops when she sees the troubled look on Yuri’s face.

“I’m fine,” she assures.

Yuri nods, and there is a sudden shared understanding between them. As if Yuri feels the exact same way Natsuki does, like they’re both missing a very important piece of this puzzle.

It’s something blurry and broken, like the way rain on a car window obscures the outside world. She can’t quite recognize the indistinct forms just beyond the glass, and apparently, neither can Yuri. They both see them though, passing by like fractured headlights.

Monika breaks the moment, her voice a knife slicing through the thin connection. 

“Come on you two! We’ve got cupcakes to bake, and banners to make!” She giggles at her little rhyme, tugging on a thread of a memory Natsuki has of someone with salmon hair and blue eyes. They passed by each other sometimes. Whatever happened to that girl?

Yuri moves forward though, so Natsuki follows. She leaves her memories at the door and decides to just enjoy the rest of the day as much as she can before she goes home. She has homework to do, she thinks, and a test to study for. 

When they’re making cupcakes, Natsuki doesn’t miss the way Monika looks at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches the girl drop her polite smile and adopt something darker instead. A smug satisfaction, one that sends shivers down Natsuki’s spine and forces her to divert all of her attention to getting the icing just right.

The cat cupcakes, or “catcakes,” as someone - a friend? - used to call them, come out perfectly, as does the banner. The three of them sit on Monika’s couch, exhausted and messy, but proud. 

As they sit in silence, a gentle tapping sounds against the roof, steadily picking up. 

Soon, it’s raining outside.

“It wasn’t supposed to rain today.” Yuri takes out her phone and scrolls until she gets to the weather app.

“Huh.” Is all Natsuki can really say as she stares out the distorted window and watches the blurry mosaic outside.

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite part of writing messy, chaotic stuff is abandoning any proper sentence structure to convey a certain flow with the words. Everything is a run-on, there are either no commas or way too many, nothing makes sense grammatically, and yet all of it is intentional. It's fun!
> 
> I also have an idea for a sequel to this, but I'm going to be really busy soon, so we'll just have to see if I have the time to write it.
> 
> Title from Lemon Demon's song "Spiral of Ants." In general, this was partially inspired by the podcast "The Magnus Archives."
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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